Rumsfeld 'led Bush to war'?

[arcticpenguin]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6987491%5E1702,00.html

Brady Kiesling, who was political counsellor at the US embassy in Athens at the time of his resignation in February, said in an open letter published by Greek daily To Vima that Rumsfeld exploited the war to increase his own power.

Kiesling – whose warning that US aims in Iraq were "incompatible with American values" struck a chord with the predominantly anti-war Greeks – described Bush as "a politician who badly wants to appear strong but in reality is very weak".

He said Rumsfeld led Bush by the hand into war, marginalised the secret services who had doubts about the war, and emerged as the top politician in Washington.

"Easy to convince, (Bush) blindly believed in Rumsfeld's assurances that the occupation of Iraq would pay for itself," Kiesling said.

My first question: who is Brady Kiesling?

I don't have any evidence on the truth or untruth of this, but it fits my general impression of Bush; that he is a front man and relies heavily on what his advisors tell him. I also disagree with many of his choices of advisors, such as John Ashcroft.

 

[Ion]

A side note about this:

...
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...
"Easy to convince, (Bush) blindly believed in Rumsfeld's assurances that the occupation of Iraq would pay for itself," Kiesling said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...

is that the occupation of Iraq doesn't pay for itself now, but it drains the U.S. consummer economy with more than $77 billion spent, mainly from U.S. taxes.

Whoever decided for the war or supports it, are goofs.

 

[Malachi151]

I agree completely with it, when I wrote my paper on the war in Iraq, which was during the start of the war I wrote:

Once the Bush team was assembled in the mid to late 1990s a strategy for election was constructed. The entire agenda from the beginning was that it was essential to engage in war with Iraq and to use the war with Iraq as the springboard for American global preeminence and as a way to disrupt the European Union and weaken the role of the euro in international business.

I believe that the first major step towards the execution of the plan to win the White House and engage in war with Iraq was the prosecution of Bill Clinton in the Whitewater/ Monica Lewinsky scandal. As was previously stated, over $47 million dollars was spent on these investigations. At the time there was a lot of controversy about the investigation because it seemed so out of control, and in fact it was out of control and over blown.

The reason that this was done is because those backing the 2000 Bush administration and war on Iraq needed to make sure that George W. Bush would win the 2000 elections in order to execute the plan. The attacks on Clinton were used as a way to investigate Al Gore and other Democrats to try and dig up dirt on them to use in the 2000 campaigns, and as a way to harm the public image of the Democratic Party to help ensure a Republican victory in 2000, which would of course be Bush.

So even at this early stage, in 1998, proponents of war with Iraq were already involved in manipulating public opinion and using tax dollars to promote their private agenda of war on Iraq and American global preeminence; this was the beginning of the coup.

When Colin Powell was being asked why he would not run for president in 2000 he made the claim that he had personal reasons for not wanting to run for president even though many Americans wanted him to. I believe that the real reason that he did not run was because he was already part of the future Bush administration which at that time had the intention of going to war with Iraq. Powell simply could not disclose this information for obvious reasons so he made up personal reasons why he didn't want to run.

During the 2000 campaign George Bush received more money then any previous presidential candidate. Every effort was made to ensure that Bush would win the election, which is why his fund raising was so strong. This was more then just a typical presidential election; it was a critical step in advancing a large and complex plan for American global domination and the promotion of the special interests of a small number of wealthy individuals and corporations, and for mitigating the threat of the European Union to the American economy.

During Bush's presidential campaign Bush lied on numerous occasions and used deceptive tactics and statements, such as claiming credit for Texas' Patient's Bill of Rights, which he vetoed the first time it was sent to him and then he refused to sign the second bill that was sent to him, when it already had a veto proof majority backing it. That is just one small example of how he misrepresented himself in the campaign.

The real crime though took place on Election Day in Florida where George Bush's brother was governor. Jeb Bush is not only George Bush's brother, but he is also a signer of the PNAC statement of principles and thus was affiliated with plans to invade Iraq prior to the 2000 elections. This gives Jeb two motives, which are actually related to each other, for conspiring to affect the outcome of elections in the state of Florida; one in order to support his brother and the other to support plans for an invasion of Iraq.

What is actually most likely is that Bush was chosen to run for president because of the Bush family ties that would be able to be used to ensure his successful election through any means necessary; its not that Jeb helped his brother win because he was his brother, it is that George Bush was chosen as the best possible candidate to enable the plan to invade Iraq to take place because of his connections in the first place, including Jeb's influence in the state with the third largest number of electoral votes while George obviously already had influence in Texas, the state with the second largest number of electoral votes.

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/putting_it_all_together.htm

I've always contented that the administration formed first, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby, and Rumsfeld, and that they then chose Bush as their ticket to the White House.

 

[asi_gonia]

My first question: who is Brady Kiesling?

He was anAmerican diplomat in Athens, Greece, who quit earlier this year (just before the war started) in protest of the Bush Administration's war in Iraq.

I have read couple of interviews with the man, and he is quite intelligent.

Apparently there were a number of senior diplomats all-over the world who quit in protest to this stupendous war.

 

[Jon_in_london]

Re: Re: Rumsfeld 'led Bush to war'?

A side note about this:

is that the occupation of Iraq doesn't pay for itself now, but it drains the U.S. consummer economy with more than $77 billion spent, mainly from U.S. taxes.

Whoever decided for the war or supports it, are goofs.

Is that $77 billion already spent?

I thought that much would be the budjet for the whole kit'kaboodle.

 

[Crossbow]

$ 77 Billion would make a pretty good down-payment, but that is just the beginning.

The war preperations alone cost nearly $ 70 billion,
the war itself about $ 20 billion,
current security is costing $ 4 billion per month, and

by the time it is all done, the whole war could wind up costing over $600 billion!

 

[Michael Redman]

If we believe everything they said about the potential threat, then perhaps even a few hundred billion worth of prevention would still be a worthwhile investment. Still, is it possible to really believe that level of threat, and that the action taken will alleviate it (rather than increase it)?

On the other hand, the bebefits to the US oil industry will obviouly be a comparative drop in the bucket, and, contrary to world perception, the US isn't simply going to sieve the oil output of Iraq. So, it's a little hard for me to understand the true motivation.

 

[davefoc]

I was one who felt that there was not enough information available publically to decide whether the war was necessary or not.

In the end I leaned slightly to the view the war was justified because I trusted the judgments of Colin Powell and Tony Blair.

My feeling (based on almost no facts) was that Rumsfeld had a juvenile enjoyment of the process of war and as such was a very dangerous individual. Wolfowitz also plays into the decision process for war, in ways I don't understand.

It appears now that MWD could not justify the war, so we are left with only a few other justifications:
1. Moral duty. After the first Bush made the apparently unilateral and immoral decision not to remove Hussein the first time, we had a duty to remove him because of his willingness to mass murder his people.
2. In the end, Hussein was such a wacko, that massive disaster was inevitable, because when given the chance he would rebuild his MWD and terrorize his neighbors and us or he would sponsor terrorism to attack us.

I don't know enough to defend any of the ideas above, but I would be interested in seeing what others thought about them.

 

[Ion]

...
It appears now that MWD could not justify the war, so we are left with only a few other justifications:
1. Moral duty. After the first Bush made the apparently unilateral and immoral decision not to remove Hussein the first time, we had a duty to remove him because of his willingness to mass murder his people.
...

Comparing how much Hussein killed in between 1992 and 2003, with how much Bush killed in four months in 2003, Bush is on top.

In fact, it would take Hussein 25 years of killing at the rate he displayed in between 1992 and 2003, to catch up with four months of Bush.

...
2. In the end, Hussein was such a wacko, that massive disaster was inevitable, because when given the chance he would rebuild his MWD and terrorize his neighbors and us or he would sponsor terrorism to attack us.
...

Bush is wacko too.

I am in favor of U.N. monitoring wackos.

Regarding the $77 billion spent by Bush in the military economy, Iraq's war is not self-sufficient, it is draining taxes and jobs from the larger U.S. consummer economy, and the motive -oil looting- will not get peacefully settled down because of Iraq's guerilla.

The war is a Bush gamble and a miscalculation.

 

[Malachi151]

If we believe everything they said about the potential threat, then perhaps even a few hundred billion worth of prevention would still be a worthwhile investment. Still, is it possible to really believe that level of threat, and that the action taken will alleviate it (rather than increase it)?

On the other hand, the bebefits to the US oil industry will obviouly be a comparative drop in the bucket, and, contrary to world perception, the US isn't simply going to sieve the oil output of Iraq. So, it's a little hard for me to understand the true motivation.

Here is my take on it:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/what_is_this_war_really_all_abou.htm

Now I certianly recognize that there are many good reasons to have gone to war with Iraq, however the Bush administration didn't talk about any of them, and still is not. While a lot of good COULD come from the war in Iraq I don't believe that it will due to the people in charge.

 

[Jon_in_london]

IMO, the only way Iraq will come right is if the US throws about $100billion at it right now, like within the next month, along with 1000s of civillian engineers and other proffesionals and about 100,000 more troops to provide added security. This is not one inflamatory trollings, its what I belive honestly.

 

[davefoc]

Ion, could you expand a little bit more on what you are saying about the number of deaths caused by Hussein and the number of deaths caused by the recent war in Iraq? Perhaps you could provide the source of your information?

 

[Ion]

http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/text2003/0331hmnrightsrpt.htm

shows:

In April the U.K.-based Guardian newspaper reported that Lieutenant Colonel Mohamad Daham al-Tikriti, a recent defector from the General Security Service, admitted that in February 150-200 civilians were killed "at random" on suspicion of conspiracy and buried in a mass grave near Baghdad as part of a larger effort in which 1,500 civilians were summarily executed in the first 2 months of the year.

which is 750 civilians killed per month, during an extraordinary measure (described as a larger effort), and it says:

The regime's motive for such high numbers of summary executions, estimated at more than 4,000 since 1997, may also be linked to reported efforts to intimidate the population.

and

In keeping with its long and established record of executing perceived or alleged political opponents, the regime committed numerous political and other extrajudicial killings throughout the reporting period.

This comes out at about 50 prisoners a month which would not really help intimidate the population if there was a multiple of that in civilians executed.
So it seems those 2 months with 750 killings were extraordinary, probably a last lashing out and to keep the population in line before the war.

So let's say he killed 100 people a month which makes 1,200 a year and compare that to the 30,000 people the US killed in four months (assumes they killed 3 times as many soldiers as civilians).

Hussein's number comes out as 3 killed per day.

Bush's number is about 60 innocent people killed per day, not per month, since September 11:

assuming 30,000 in Iraq (7,000 civilians + a reasonable estimate of 20,000+ conscripted soldiers) and 10,000 in Afganistan (4,000 civilians + an estimate of 6,000 Taliban who were not terrorists.

It looks like Hussein would have had to live another 25 years to kill as many Iraqis as Bush's U.S. did kill people since September 11.

 

[Clancie]

Posted by davefoc

It appears now that MWD could not justify the war, so we are left with only a few other justifications:

1. Moral duty. After the first Bush made the apparently unilateral and immoral decision not to remove Hussein the first time, we had a duty to remove him because of his willingness to mass murder his people.

2. In the end, Hussein was such a wacko, that massive disaster was inevitable, because when given the chance he would rebuild his MWD and terrorize his neighbors and us or he would sponsor terrorism to attack us.

Well, here's another....

3. That the most avid war proponents (Rumsfeld-Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rice) wanted a war in order to deplete our existing weapons supply and therein justify a new wave of greater-than-ever military spending. (The huge government reconstruction contracts doled out in the process for "well connected companies" (yes, like Halliburton) are just a happy added bonus).

I really think the underlying motive of the war was to help justify redirecting economic priorities into weapons research and production. Seems to be working, too.....

 

[Ziggurat]

I'm rather upset about some of the specific claims made in support of the war by the administration, but you anti-war people should also keep a few things in mind. Saddam wanted nukes, anyone who says differently is either stupid or a Saddam apologist. Given enough time, he WAS going to aquire them eventually. Sanctions couldn't keep him locked up forever, not when France, Russia, and China were quite willing to let them decay, and Iraq's neighors like Jordan couldn't be trusted to keep any border security - they were benefiting massively from smuggling. He was probably years away, but there might never be a moment when we could say "he's about to get nukes". And if he ever DID get nukes, there's no way in hell any of his neighbors would have been brave enough to oppose him. The only plausible way to keep him from getting nukes in the long term was to take him out of power. And the time to do that wasn't getting any better. The UN wasn't going to do anything serious about this either. Saddam could outwait any inspections before starting up his programs again, and we couldn't maintain serious inspections AND sanctions indefinitely. So if you oppose the war, here's a question: was there ANY other realistic way of making sure Saddam never got his hands on nukes?

I'm incredibly opposed to Bush on just about every concievable domestic issue. But there's a lot of knee-jerk reaction going on about this war on both sides - liberals who essentially defend the rights of a despotic tyrant because Bush is the one who wants to take him out, as well as conservatives who defend Bush's prevarications on the specifics of the conflict because he's their point man. Wake up, people. The world is complex, and your "side" isn't always right. The same sort of thinking fooled much of the arab world into supporting Saddam because they don't like us or Israel and he was hostile to both, even though Saddam killed many more Arabs and muslims than the US and Israel combined.

 

[davefoc]

Ziggurat, did a nice job of describing what I think continues to be the best argument for the war and it is basically the reasoning that keeps me leaning slightly in favor of it.

There are so many unknowns here though, I remain firmly in the not too sure camp.

Clancie, put forth a new version of one of the various, Bush, et al, are evil folks and that's the reason we went to war arguments. For me, this is one of the most unlikely to be true of the arguments of that type. I suppose given my somewhat low opinion of Rumsfeld I can find a little plausibility in it, but mostly I don't see how the various players benefit by a large expenditure to replace military ordinance and even if they were in a position to benefit I think it is unlikely that anybody in the administration is remotely that evil.

Ion's link didn't work, but I wasn't sure I followed everything he wrote. Weren't there thousands of deaths attributed to gas attacks by Hussein against the Kurds in the North?

 

[a_unique_person]

If we believe everything they said about the potential threat, then perhaps even a few hundred billion worth of prevention would still be a worthwhile investment. Still, is it possible to really believe that level of threat, and that the action taken will alleviate it (rather than increase it)?

On the other hand, the bebefits to the US oil industry will obviouly be a comparative drop in the bucket, and, contrary to world perception, the US isn't simply going to sieve the oil output of Iraq. So, it's a little hard for me to understand the true motivation.

Hubris?

 

[a_unique_person]

IMO, the only way Iraq will come right is if the US throws about $100billion at it right now, like within the next month, along with 1000s of civillian engineers and other proffesionals and about 100,000 more troops to provide added security. This is not one inflamatory trollings, its what I belive honestly.

Given that they cannot even supply enough water to their own troops, you aren't going to be able to fit in any more people in the long term. And who would work there now, anyway?

 

[Ion]

Ziggurat, did a nice job of describing what I think continues to be the best argument for the war and it is basically the reasoning that keeps me leaning slightly in favor of it.
...

Ziggurat doesn't convince me:

.) Bush's war is from a wacko, who takes $77 billion (and counting) -mostly by draining the U.S. consummer economy's taxes and jobs- in order to loot Iraq's oil, with lies and killings in excess of Hussein's killings (see my previous post);

Bush's war is not in self-defense, is not for liberation, thus is against democracy;

.) I am in favor of containing wackos like Hussein, but under a U.N. coalition of honest liberation, ensuring among many checkpoints that another wacko -Bush- is not outdoing Hussein.

...
Ion's link didn't work, but I wasn't sure I followed everything he wrote. Weren't there thousands of deaths attributed to gas attacks by Hussein against the Kurds in the North?

The link works now.

The Kurds in the North were killed in 1988 during the Anfal campaign:

"The majority of the 16,496 cases known to the Special Rapporteur were persons of Kurdish origin who disappeared during the 1988 Anfal campaign."

and

"HRW and other organizations worked with various agencies to bring a genocide case at the International Court of Justice against the regime for its conduct of the Anfal campaign against the Kurds in 1988."

After the first Gulf war until now, which is in between 1992 and 2003, Hussein was more contained by U.N. than before 1992 (than in 1988 in Anfal for example), didn't threaten neighbors, and as a local despot killed less than 3 civilians per day.

See the calculation of this '3' in my previous post.

Since September 11, Bush killed 60 people per day in Afghanistan and Iraq.

See the calculation of this '60' in my previous post.

Again:

.) Hussein would have had to kill for 25 more years at the rate he was killing in between 1992 and 2003 when under U.N. containment, in order to match Bush's killing performance of less than two years, since September 11.

.) Bush is more of a killer in one year and a half than Hussein is since 1992 under U.N. containment.

 

[Leif Roar]

So if you oppose the war, here's a question: was there ANY other realistic way of making sure Saddam never got his hands on nukes?

Is there ANY other realistic way to make sure that the next government in Iraq will never get their hands on nukes? How about Saudi Arabia? Tanzania? Sweden? Brazil? Afghanistan? Indonesia? Columbia? How about Pakistan and India?

"Well, they might perhaps at some indeterminate point in the future have become a real threat again" isn't really a strong argument for agression against another state. It's a particularly weak argument when you consider the weak reaction from both the US and the rest of the world when India and Pakistan performed their first nuclear tests.

I suspect that USA's actions in Iraq might have made it more alluring for nations to get hold of nuclear weapons. How else to deter the US from putting military force to bear against them?